“I can’t breathe.”
Repeated last words of Eric Garner, police victim
Like Fate’s arbiters,
Cops crush the breath
of those they oppress,
let the rich breathe easy;
Hawaiians couldn’t
smell the breath
of standoffish whites,
ha‘oles
(men without breath),
distrusting those whose
withheld breath might stink of
treachery.
If you are rich
or white and can breathe
easy these days,
you should shun
city streets, TV news,
and poems that can
take your breath
away.
George Held, a regular contributor to The New Verse News, has a new book out from Poets Wear Prada, Culling: New & Selected Nature Poems.